


Episode 2 - The Never Planet

by goaskjane



Series: Doctor Who Series 13 [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goaskjane/pseuds/goaskjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Molly land on a fantastic planet, usually known as Never Land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The TARDIS Touched Down

The TARDIS touched down.

 

“Where are we?” Molly asked. The Doctor leaned against the wall and tapped the door mysteriously.

 

“Take a look,” he said with a little nod. Molly approached suspiciously; the Doctor was rarely this subdued, but she could tell he was excited. She pushed the door open and gasped at what she saw.

 

It was a misty island in the distance covered with acres of trees and cavernous mountains. There was a pirate ship anchored offshore, three rainbows overhead, huge white birds and oversized sea turtles, and a circle of teepees around a totem pole.

 

“What is this place?” Molly asked breathlessly. The Doctor pushed open the other door to lean out next to her.

 

“Neverland,” he said impressively. “Well…an alien planet that looks like Neverland. Technically, its planetary body number 187898 in the Etruscan Galaxy….”

 

“Doctor,” Molly interrupted. He was always going on like that. “This is… _so cool_!” Molly poked her head out the door a little further and said with an awed tone, “823.914 B-a-r.”

 

“What was that?”

 

“The Dewey Decimal call number for Neverland.” The look on the Doctor’s face was priceless – confused and amazed all at once. “What? It’s how I remember things. It’s not easy having an eidetic memory – I’ve got to have some way of organizing things.” She stretched out her foot to step into the magic, but the Doctor caught her by the collar.

 

“Woah, woah! Watch it,” he said once she was safely back on the floor of the TARDIS. Molly looked down and saw at least a mile’s drop to the surface of an ocean far below. She leaned far out the door and looked around the corner. They seemed to be settled rather nicely in the largest bird’s nest she had ever seen, perched precariously on a tiny island that dropped almost straight down like a cliff on all sides. “The tide’s out.” The Doctor explained.

 

“That’s some tide,” Molly said in awe. The Doctor smiled and turned around so that his back was to Neverland. He rocked back and forth on his heels, hands in his pockets and a big grin on his face.

 

“Feel like having a bit of an adventure?”

 

“Don’t we always?” The Doctor winked at her before leaning too far back and falling out of the TARDIS. “Doctor!” Molly cried as he fell out of view. But he floated gently back up with a grin from ear to ear as Molly’s breath left her.

 

“Come on out, Molly.” The Doctor stretched out a hand. “The air’s fine.”

 

“How are you doing that?” she asked.

 

“You want the real answer or the short one?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Anti-gravity brain sensors, placed all over the island. They read your brain waves. When your Alpha waves are active, they actually lift you off the ground. It’s actually only a few years ahead of your technology at home,” the Doctor said. “In short, when you’re happy, you fly.”

 

“Unbelievable.” Molly shook her head in amazement.

 

“Hey! No negativity,” the Doctor insisted. “Brain wave sensors, remember?” He wiggled the fingers of his still-outstretched hand invitingly. “Come on,” he coaxed. Molly smiled widely and put her hand in his before taking a step forward, this time more prepared as her whole body dipped in the nothingness. But she remained afloat and an excited giggle escaped her as she realized that she was _flying!_

 

The Doctor reached around her to lock the TARDIS doors, but Molly asked, “Shouldn’t we move the TARDIS? What about when the tide comes in?” The Doctor raised an eyebrow and looked down at the ocean below as though to ask what on Earth Molly was thinking.

 

“I think we’re ok,” he said.

 

“But look how far out it goes,” she insisted. “Just imagine how far it comes back in. Besides, I’ve done my reading. This place has two moons – d’you know how crazy the tide is going to be?”

 

“Oh! Pfft!” The Doctor scoffed with a wave of his hand. “We’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing. Besides, I couldn’t move it if I wanted to. Restricted landing port.” Molly thought that the Doctor was probably wrong, as it sometimes happened, but she kept her mouth shut. Restricted landing ports were nothing to be fooled with. They had learned that lesson once before. “Come on, let’s go!” He whined in his best five-year-old voice. “I want to hunt crocodiles and Indians!” Molly laughed and the Doctor zoomed ahead of her. Purely out of mind power did Molly follow, floating weightlessly behind him toward the island. Neverland.

 

They floated swiftly over the sea until they came to the shore. The Doctor touched down gently on the sand and looked around with his trademark curiosity on his face. Molly struggled to slow her feet down before her torso, so as to not topple head first into the shallow water, and her arms flapped rather wildly. Why was the Doctor already a seasoned flyer?

 

The scenery around her was wilder than any she had ever seen. The trees that grew there went right up to the water and their trunks were twice as wide around as Molly was tall. She could have used one of the wide, dark green leaves as a skirt and it still would have been too big. Flowers blossomed all around in colors that Molly was quite sure had never been discovered by humans. She picked a bunch of at least twenty tiny blossoms that grew all in one bunch. As she began to string them together in a chain, Molly drifted over to a long tree branch that grew out over the water and hooked her knees over it, swinging down so that she could just reach the shallow water with her fingertips.

 

“So how did all this happen?” she asked.

 

“What d’you mean?” the Doctor replied as he examined a colony of what looked like blue honeybees all milling about a little hill of clay.

 

“This planet,” she clarified, “how did it come to be?”

 

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

 

“I _mean_ ,” she said with frustration, “how did this planet – in a completely different galaxy – come to be a replication of a fictional island from a novel written on Earth?”

 

The Doctor replied nonchalantly, “Well, it’s not so much that the planet is a reproduction of the novel as that I brought Jim Barrie here once.”

 

Molly actually slipped from the branch in shock, but managed to catch herself before she hit the water. “I’m sorry – you brought J.M. Barrie here and then he wrote _Peter Pan_?”

 

“I suppose so, yes.”

 

“That’s astounding.”

 

“I suppose so, yes.” Molly just shook her head; his ego was incredible.

 

“So, can we go see some mermaids?”

 

“Sure!” The Doctor waved Molly onward like an enthusiastic tour guide and they were off through the wild and overgrown jungle.

 

They travelled on for quite a while, Molly struggling to keep up with the Doctor’s freakishly-long legs; he seemed tireless, but Molly had never been one for fitness. After about forty-five minutes, the Doctor started to slow down, and Molly sighed in relief. “Something’s not quite right,” he said.

 

“Of course it’s not,” Molly said with exasperation. “What is it this time?”

 

“We should have run into something by now,” he replied pensively. “A pirate, a crocodile…. A trap.”

 

No sooner had the word escaped his lips than Molly felt the ground disappear from beneath her and she was hoisted swiftly upward by her ankles. Once she got her bearings, Molly saw that the Doctor was hanging upside down as well, just a few feet ahead of her along the path.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Pirate's Life

“You had to say it, didn’t you?” she scolded. “You had to say ‘trap’!”

 

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

 

“That’s beside the point!” Molly tried vainly to twist herself around so she could get a clear view of the Doctor, but only managed to start herself swinging back and forth. “If I get eaten by a Neverbird, I’ll never forgive you!”

 

“Silence, prisoners!” Molly and the Doctor both looked downward and spotted a group of small boys staring viciously up at them; they had appeared as silently as the night. “Did Hook send you to spy on us?”

 

Molly was completely taken aback – there was a real Captain Hook?

 

The Doctor, however, remained perfectly calm. “Certainly not!” he declared indignantly. “Us? Working for a great codfish like Jas Hook? I am offended, sir!”

 

The boys didn’t buy it. “All grown-ups work for Hook,” one of them said.

 

The Doctor replied, “We are adults, to be sure, but grown-ups we are not!”

 

“Prove it!” another of the boys demanded.

 

“I hate baths,” the Doctor said vehemently, “and I would rather eat pudding than anything else, except maybe chips.” He paused before adding, “Oh! And Father Christmas is real – I’ve met him!” for good measure.

 

The boys made noises of assent amongst themselves and seemed to be satisfied with the Doctor’s childishness. “What about you, girl?” the first boy asked harshly of Molly. “Are you here to be our mother?”

 

“What?” Molly sputtered. “No – of course not!”

 

“Girls are mothers and if you’re not our mother, than you are a pirate!” the same boy cried declaratively. The others agreed with loud shouts and shaking their fists. “Cut them down!” One of the boys climbed a tree and sliced the rope which held them captive with a sharp knife that he carried in his teeth. The Doctor caught himself midair and floated gently to his feet; Molly, however, was taken off guard and slammed to the ground, landing hard on her back. “You there!” the boy who seemed to be the leader pointed at the Doctor. “Bring the girl! We will go to see our chief now – he will decide what to do with her!” The other boys shouted in excitement and agreement and started marching back through the jungle.

 

The Doctor took Molly by the elbow and started to lead her along behind the boys, but she shook him off in frustration. “What? Don’t be cross with me because the Lost Boys don’t like girls. You should have just said yes.”

 

“But I’m not their mother,” Molly insisted.

 

“Well, I know that,” the Doctor replied patronizingly.

 

“You didn’t have to lie,” she said snidely. “You’re one of the most childish people I know.” The Doctor merely smirked.

 

“Don’t I know it.”

 

“Tall man! Stop chatting up the prisoner!”

 

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!” The Doctor gave the loudest of the Lost Boys a tight salute; Molly shook her head. “Come on, young librarian,” he said softly so the boys couldn’t hear, “it’s an adventure! Embrace it!” He shook her shoulders enthusiastically and Molly couldn’t help but smile. He was right and she knew it. They trekked through the jungle until the troupe came to a tall tree in the center of the wood. The loud boy tapped on a knot in the trunk and a hole, just large enough for a boy, opened up and he slipped inside. The rest of the boys followed in a similar fashion. Finally, it was the Doctor and Molly’s turn. The Doctor seemed stymied.

 

“What are you waiting for?” Molly asked. “Use your sonic screwdriver.”

 

“I can’t,” he said with a pout. “It doesn’t do wood.”

 

“It fuses wires and undoes super glue, but it doesn’t _do wood_?”

 

“There wasn’t enough memory space for wood! It was either that or get rid of the channel-changing-mode. And I’m _not_ dropping that one.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully and examined the tree. He sniffed it, he licked a branch, and he scratched at the bark, but came up with nothing.

 

“Oh for – move over!” Molly shoved the Doctor aside and jabbed at another knot on the trunk. A hole opened up with enough room for the both of them to slip through one at a time.

 

“How did you do that?”

 

“You just have to believe in it, Doctor,” she said matter-of-factly before slipping into the hole. The Doctor shrugged and followed suit. They landed in the sitting room of the home under the ground that Molly had read about so many times. It was exactly as she had imagined it.

 

“Chief!” the loud boy was calling out, drawing Molly out of her reverie. “I have captured one of Hook’s spies!” The other boys cried out in protest. “The other boys helped a little.”

 

“Good work, men!” A curtain along the far side of the room was pulled aside and the Wonderful Boy himself stepped through. Molly clapped a hand to her mouth in shock and excitement. Peter Pan – in the flesh! The Doctor giggled like a child and went to shake Peter’s hand.

 

“An honor to meet you, Chief Pan, sir!” he gave the boy a little salute and Peter returned it, looking smug.

 

“And who might you be, tall man?”

 

“I’m the Doctor and this is Molly – she’s a pirate.”

 

“I am _not_ a pirate,” Molly insisted petulantly.

 

“Are you our mother?” Peter asked suspiciously. Molly sighed; not this again.

 

“No…” she conceded heavily, making a decision. “I’m a pirate.” The Doctor just grinned; it was about time she played along.

 

“Then we shall use you as bait and capture Hook!” Peter declared. The Lost Boys cheered and threw their hands up.

 

“Argh,” Molly said half-heartedly. The Doctor nudged her subtly with his elbow. “ _Argh_!” she cried out with more feeling; the Lost Boys instantly exclaimed in fury, and Peter himself grabbed Molly by the wrists and tied them together behind her back.

 

“We shall display her out by skull rock,” Peter proclaimed, “and when Hook comes to retrieve her, we will slay them all! And if the tide should reach her before the pirates, all the better for her not to die at my hand!” There was such an outcry of excitement and rage from the Lost Boys and the Doctor that Molly found herself actually becoming frightened. Would they really let her drown?

 

It seemed to take very little time to reach Skull Rock from the home under the ground, but Peter must surely have some control over the distances of the island. In no time at all, Molly was being dragged through the open air by the Doctor toward a small flat rock. He sat her upon it and did his best to adjust her limbs into some semblance of comfort. “Are you truly going to leave me out here?”

 

“Of course, you’re a pirate!” the Doctor exclaimed. “But,” he said conspiratorially, “I _will_ leave you my sonic screwdriver.” He pressed it into her bound hand. “Rope is setting 187.” He clapped her cheerfully on the shoulder before taking flight again and leaving Molly completely marooned.

 

Molly chewed her tongue in frustration for a few minutes before she noticed a shadow on the eastern horizon; it was a ship, coming ever closer, with a black flag flying atop the mainsail. “Bugger,” Molly quietly swore and began wriggling against her bonds. She managed to pull her arms under her bottom and in front of her and, wrists still tied, turned the sonic screwdriver to setting 187. She pointed it at the rope around her wrists until they finally snapped, by which time, the Jolly Roger was well in sight. It seemed they had dropped anchor and were lowering a rowboat to the surface of the water. Molly looked back toward the shore, but could see none of the Lost Boys there, they were so well hidden.

 

Taking a deep breath, Molly straightened her legs in front of her and slipped into the water below, barely making a splash. The water was pleasantly cool and while it had been difficult to see beneath its surface from above, it was clear as glass from below. She pressed herself toward the edge of the rock where a little lip provided a place to put her hands, effectively anchoring her below the water. Smirking, Molly watched the little rowboat slow and saw a fat little man haul something out of it before rowing away. He was quite a distance away before Molly needed to resurface for breath. She went around to the other side of the rock and peeked over the edge to see what the man had deposited.

 

It was a little girl, about ten years old, with long dark hair and a rawhide dress and moccasins. Molly nearly drowned when she realized that it must be Princess Tiger Lilly; did this girl just get kidnapped all the time?

 

Molly pulled herself higher out of the water and Tiger Lilly didn’t so much as flinch when she noticed her. Instead, she blinked slowly and haughtily before turning her gaze forward again. Molly reached up with the sonic screwdriver and was about to undo Tiger Lilly’s ropes when a thought occurred to her; Peter would never let Tiger Lilly drown and Molly was supposed to be a pirate.

 

So she left the stuck-up princess where she sat and dove back under.


End file.
